Always Stay
by karebear
Summary: "'Why' feels like the question that she has to ask. But the truth is, she knows why." Anders and Rhyanon Amell reunite, one last time, five years after Kirkwall.


A birthday present for the lovely **alyssacousland**, who wanted "full of emotions." Woman, here is a basket full.

Here is the prompt she gave me: "You know what I would like to see? In the future, _after_ Anders blows up the Chantry and Hawke and he run, I want them to meet up with Rhyanon (Amell). And that conversation between the two. I mean, Anders is like her brother!"

_"And I can't remember how it all began to break…"  
_- Breaking Benjamin, "Fade Away"

Rhyanon sits alone, in one of the caves along the coast of Amaranthine. She licks her lips nervously, and wraps her cloak tighter around herself. Her fingers tightly crumple the bit of parchment in her pocket. A note disguised by old ciphers - years old, but she could still decode them, not that she even really needed to. Simple words, enough to count on one hand, written hastily in messy, too-familiar scrawl: _I need your help. Please. _

She closes her eyes and forces herself to breathe. She hasn't talked to him in _so long_. _Years_. And she doesn't even know him anymore. She isn't certain of much of anything, but she still believes in him. She _has to_. Without that, what does she have to cling to?

She waits. She lights a fire. She stays alert. Her fingers tap nervously at the stone walls, and she hovers near the entrance of the cave, afraid to move too far away from open sky.

The figure coming up the path is not Anders. That much is obvious. But then, although Rhyanon _hoped_, she had never expected him. The meeting was always meant to be with someone else.

The dark-haired young woman enters the cave cautiously. She does not bother to hide her suspicion, or her tension. She barely seems to breathe. "Anders says we can trust you," she says softly. Her voice is uncertain, a tangled mix of hope and fear, resting on a knife's edge.

Rhyanon nods. Of course they can. He should know that. He shouldn't even have to _ask_. She cracks her knuckles, and studies this woman who has come to speak for him. She's never met her before, but she knows of her. Everyone in the world knows of her. She's gone by many names - but then, so has Rhyanon herself. What matters now is the last one: Demon of Kirkwall. She was with Anders the day that the world caught fire. The whole world is hunting her.

"Why did you come here?" Rhyanon asks. The words come out more harshly than she wanted them to. But the girl Callin, once called Champion, barely seems to notice. She frowns, and sinks to a seat beside the fire. She lets out a long breath. Her eyes never leave Rhyanon's.

"How much do you know about Kirkwall?" the younger mage finally asks, cautiously. She looks _so afraid_. And Rhyanon knows what that's like. But that world was so long ago. Wasn't it?

She sighs, sinking onto one of the larger rocks, close to the fire. She shakes her head. Her stomach hurts. "Only a little," she admits. "Scraps and rumors."

She can't keep the anger out of her voice although she _tries_. He must have had a good reason. She _has to_ trust him. _Always_. Right? _Always_. She promised him, so long ago and far away. It is the one promise she had never let herself break. "Tell me what really happened," Rhyanon pleads. "Tell me the truth, because the Anders I know would never blow up a Chantry!"

Callin flinches away from Rhyanon's harsh words, stung even more than she might've been by a physical attack. She balls up her hand into a tight fist.

She wonders why Anders ever thought they could find help here. Maybe this woman was his friend once, a long time ago, but he doesn't know her anymore. She doesn't know him. How could she? "It's true," she says softly. "He planted a bomb in the heart of the Chantry. I was there." She no longer seems to care what this old childhood friend might think.

Rhyanon's stomach twists, almost before Callin even speaks the words aloud.

_Why_? feels like the question that she has to ask. But the truth is, she _knows_ why. And she celebrates it, in the twisted part of her brain that she doesn't want to acknowledge out loud. She's happy he did it.

"I need to see him," she insists, in a quiet whisper. "I need to know... how is he?" Not 'is he okay?' She knows he isn't.

"He's alive…" Callin replies. Her voice sounds hard. Dead.

She cannot give Rhyanon more than that. It hurts to think about it. It always hurts.

How do you explain how he is to a stranger? How do you explain the voices, the blackouts, the mood swings? How do you explain the constant fear he feels, the fear _she_ feels around him, the paranoia?

Rhyanon studies the other woman's face, trying to read her. They stare at each other across the flickering light of the campfire flames. Their features are obscured by shadows.

"He won't talk to you," Rhyanon says softly. She's speaking more to herself than to Callin. Her words cross time and space, they scratch at old memories. She reaches up to her shoulderblade, tracing an ancient scar. "He gets angry. He doesn't know who you are sometimes. And he tells you to go away before he hurts you. He tells you he needs you and then he pulls away. He pushes you away and he curls inside himself and you don't know how to help him. But he needs help. And so do you."

Her words wash over Callin like a cold shock. She describes it as though she's seen it. But she has, hasn't she? Anders had told stories about the Tower days, in those rare moments when he was content enough, drunk enough, _desperate_ enough not to care what she might think. She'd been afraid this woman wouldn't recognize the man Anders has become, but the truth is, she may be the only one who _can_. Tears sting her eyes. Rhyanon is right. They need help.

"It's even worse now," she whispers. "Maker, you have no idea."

"There's nowhere left to run," Rhyanon replies, just as softly. "That's always when he's worst. There's nowhere safe to go."

Not even here. She can't say it, she won't take away that hope, but the Keep is not a safe place anymore. Not for Anders, especially. Maybe not even for her.

"He said you'd help," Callin chokes out. She is broken and desperate. "He said it had to be you. You're the only one who…" she stops, and holds Rhyanon's gaze with hardened eyes, as if daring her to point out how crazy she sounds. But Rhyanon only shakes her head. She's holding her breath, and Callin recognizes the shimmer of unshed tears in the other woman's eyes. Callin bites her lip, and _prays_. She doesn't know what else to do. There is nowhere left to go. "You're the only one who always _stayed_," she whispers. Her voice breaks. He doesn't even recognize her anymore, except for every now and then. His dreams tell him that he is still trapped in a place that she can't get to. And she can't pull him out. Not anymore. Never for long enough. He doesn't _see her_, and he asks for someone else instead. And, Maker help her, all that she could do was find her for him. All she can do is stand here and beg her to save a man who is beyond saving.

"He doesn't sleep," she insists, desperately. "He's… irrational. Violent. I don't know how to help him. It's like he doesn't even hear me!"

Rhyanon stares at Callin, without blinking, across the campfire flames. A cold gust of wind blows into the cave and blows out the bright fire, leaving only a few swirling sparks. Rhyanon reaches out and runs a gentle hand, a healing touch, over Callin's eye, shadowed by dark bruises. "He's hurting you," she murmurs. She feels sick.

She remembers one time, a thousand years ago, when the Anders she'd known had lost control of his mana, newly returned to him after too many weeks without, no human contact except the kind that brought pain and suffering. He'd been confused then too, incoherent, he'd lost track of who she was, until she _forced him_ to pay attention. They'd both gotten hurt, fighting for survival that mid-afternoon in an empty dorm. It was the only time she'd ever been truly afraid of him. It's all that's left of him now, if what Callin says is true.

Callin blocks her healing spell, and pulls away. To Rhyanon, it feels almost as though the younger mage is putting up a physical wall between them. She backs off immediately. There's no telling what this woman has been through. The little bit she knows scares her enough.

"It's not as bad as you think," Callin insists. Her voice falters just enough that Rhyanon knows she can't even convince herself, but she doesn't say anything. She just _listens_. Maybe that, more than anything, is what they all need. Callin blows out a long breath. Her eyes flicker over Rhyanon's face. "It's not all the time. Not even most of the time. He loves me. I know he does."

"Of course he does," Rhyanon says softly. "He always does."

"I'm not afraid of him hurting me. I can handle myself. But I… I'm afraid he'll hurt our… our daughter."

He never has before. But she can't afford to risk it. Not when he is so unpredictable. The war they are fighting is impossible to win. She can't remember the last time she's seen Anders relax. He is so consumed by driving anger, on the days when he functions at all. "I thought…" She squeezes her eyes shut. "She makes him so happy. You should see him with her."

Rhyanon can barely breathe. _He has a daughter._ A child he is putting into danger. And somehow this feels more important than a thousand deaths, the war he's started. She's a warrior too.

"Callin, listen to me," Rhyanon insists. "He will not hurt your daughter. I won't let him."

Callin nods. Somehow, she believes her. What other choice does she have?

"I need to see him," Rhyanon insists. She should have insisted on it from the start.

"You might not recognize him anymore," Callin warns. Maker knows she doesn't. She tries to deny it, but she knows the truth: Anders has been breaking by degrees since that black day in Kirkwall. Since long before that. Maybe he has never not been broken.

"He'll recognize me." That's the most important thing. The one hope Rhyanon has to can cling to.

She knew him before Callin did, knows things that Callin cannot possibly know. Old secrets. Tower days. There is so much space between them now, so many years. But she understands him in ways that maybe nobody else could. Not even the mother of his child.

It _hurts_, to know that. She doesn't want that for either of them. She wants him to be happy. He deserves so much more than just a reminder of old damage. But this is all they have.

She meets him alone, at the boundaries of the land that still technically belongs to her, the arling of Amaranthine. Even after all these years, it still doesn't feel right to claim it. So she doesn't. She just walks. The wind blows through the dying long grasses of autumn. Rhyanon crushes old stalks of corn and wheat under her boots.

She finds him sitting at the edge of a rippling creek. The cold water flows in eddies and swirls. Above them, the sky is a deep intense blue. Rhyanon breathes it all in. She still remembers when this kind of purity, freedom from walls and cages, was forbidden to them. He's better out here, in the open. Of course he is.

She sits down next to him, at the water's edge. Anders buries his face in his hands, until Rhyanon gently wraps her fingers around his wrist, and pulls his hand away. She gasps softly when he looks up at her, and a shiver runs up her spine. Her stomach constricts, with old familiar guilt. And fear. His once-bright liquid brown eyes are dark now, and shot through with red: evidence of crying, of exhaustion, of stress - it's impossible to tell, and likely all of that. So much must have happened to him that she cannot even begin to understand. But despite all of this, what scares her most is the _recognition _of what she's seeing. He hasn't been sleeping, or eating. He is too thin, too pale. He is covered in bruises and scars, old and new.

_You might not recognize him, _Callin had warned. But she _does_. Even after all these years, they are back to the start. She _recognizes him_: he is the broken, frightened boy left alone in the dark; the animal trapped, lashing out at everyone and everything.

"Anders, it's me," she murmurs. It's all too easy to slip into those old habits. That old language. He flinches away from her touch, so she sets her fingers down in the soft sand instead, leaves him be. She's never known what to say when he's like this. But she _still _won't let him go through it alone. She decides to start with the obvious. "You have a daughter," she whispers.

A spark of recognition flashes in Anders' eyes; a spark of _life_. Rhyanon latches onto that desperately, like a woman drowning. His mana, so close to hers, wraps around her, seeking familiarity, and when she closes her eyes she's instantly pulled backward. It hurts to breathe.

Anders nods, and Rhyanon's heart nearly shatters, because she can't find any of the carefree, laughing boy he used to be. Even something as beautiful as bringing a child into the world - something they'd both been told they'd never be allowed to do, produces nothing but fear in him. He is haunted, hunted. As if all these years that he's been gone have only been borrowed time.

"What's her name?" she asks gently.

Anders runs his fingers through his long, too-tangled hair. "Alexandra," he murmurs. "Lexa. We call her Lexa. She's nearly four."

Nearly four. Born after the end of the world. A child who has never known anything but this war of annihilation. But then, she's never known the Circle either. And Rhyanon can't see that as a bad thing. "You have a _daughter_," she repeats, more forcefully.

Anders smiles. Though his eyes are still dark and shadowed, it feels like he is coming awake. "She's beautiful, Melly. She's…"

"A miracle," Rhyanon breathes. Still completing his sentences, after all this time. Anders nods.

"I need you to take care of her. No one else can do it. It has to be you. It's always been you."

Rhyanon's breath catches in her throat. She shakes her head. She doesn't bother to stop the tears pouring down her cheeks. "I can't do that, Anders. You -"

He shakes his head, grabs her wrist. His eyes are wild and desperate.

"_Please_," he begs her. "I'll never ask you for anything else."

There's no denying what he means. The world is broken. He cannot evade capture forever, he doesn't _want _to. And Callin won't leave his side. How could she?

Rhyanon's never been the one to follow him. She _stays_, she waits. Even at the end.

Her heart hurts so badly that she feels like she herself is dying. And she is, isn't she? He's always been part of her. But she nods. He needs her to do this one last thing for him. Of course she will. She'll be there to pick up the pieces when he is too broken to do anything but run. He is _still running_, still hunted. But there's no saving him this time. And somehow, she's okay with that. She's okay, because he is asking for her help. He is trusting her with the only thing he has left.

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and holds her tight to his chest, the way he'd done when they were children. "Thank you, Melly," he murmurs. They are both crying.

* * *

Rhyanon holds his daughter, the night she wakes up screaming, crying and thrashing in her sleep.

It's weeks later when Rhyanon breaks the sealing wax on a message from half a world away, with trembling hands. She already knows what it says, of course. They've always been able to find each other in the Fade. She felt it, the same way his daughter did, the day his blood spilled onto the cracked red clay streets of Val Royeaux.

_No rest in this world, or beyond. _

She can still hear the echoes of his voice. They never fade.


End file.
